Hopfinger wins Illinois Open

    Writing from Glenview, Illinois
    Wednesday, July 23, 2014

    Brad Hopfinger had been in this position before. Contending for a title in the last round, feeling the pressure, needing to get the job done to lift the trophy.
    In Mexico in April, Hopfinger held the lead with a round to play in a PGA Tour Latinoamerica tournament, but stumbled and finished four strokes behind.
    Wednesday, he started the final round of the 65th Illinois Open at the windblown Glen Club two strokes behind leader Brian Bullington. But Bullington faded early and the race for the trophy came down to Hopfinger, who birdied three of the first five holes, and Travis Johns, who started the day a stroke back.
    “Every time you’re in position, you always learn something,” Hopfinger said. “I learned there along with the other times I’ve been on the leader board.”
    He learned well. Even with a bogey at the last, Hopfinger scrambled to a 1-under-par 71 and scored a one-stroke victory with a 54-hole aggregate of 6-under-par 210, a stroke better than Johns, who also bogeyed the par-5 18th.
    That was one of the holes where the tournament turned, but the drama began at the first. That’s where Hopfinger, a 25-year-old from Lake Forest in his third full year chasing birdies for dollars following a college career that started at Kansas and finished at Iowa, opened with a two-putt birdie after reaching the green of the downwind par 5 in two with a 5-iron. It’s also where Bullington scored bogey, the first of too many crooked numbers on a card that would eventually total 83. The Iowa senior finished tied for 16th.
    Hopfinger, who earned $13,500 from the purse of $66,590, would birdie three of the first five holes to reach 8-under and led Johns by one and Michael Daven of Hoopeston, Kyle English of Bloomington and Max Scodro of Chicago by two at that point. But there was much golf yet to be played, and much wind to play it in. Down the street at Chicago Executive Airport, it was steady from the north-northeast at 16 to 20 mph, and gusted to 28. On certain points of The Glen Club, it was stronger. In the wind tunnel that is the 17th tee, for instance, might have gotten to 35 mph.
    “It’s hard from a timing standpoint,” Hopfinger said. “And putting in the wind is as hard as it gets.”
    Twice, Hopfinger backed off a par putt on the eighth green because of the gusty conditions, and then sank it. He led Johns by two strokes at the turn, then bogeyed the par-3 11th. When Johns birdied the par-4 12th, the game was afoot. But Hopfinger knew nothing of his status.
    “I actually never looked,” he said. “Not until 15, when I asked my caddie where I stood and shouldn’t have, because I made five.”
    That bogey moved him back to 7-under. Johns, the teaching pro at Medinah Country Club, had played the 12th through 15th in 1-under and also stood 7-under in the group behind. but Hopfinger made only more more mistake down the stretch, bogeying the 18th thanks to a plugged lie in a greenside bunker with his third shot. Johns made a pair of mistakes.
    “I was hitting it everywhere on the back nine,” Johns said. “Exciting, fun to watch.”
    The par-3 17th was into the teeth of the gale. Johns wanted to be below the hole, and was, but also off the green and facing a difficult chip. He got to the proper level of the green, but tried to adjust his par putt to account for the wind, and missed it.
    Johns was bogeying the 17th and dropping to 6-under the same time Hopfinger was bogeying the 18th to get to 6-under.
    “I knew I had a shot,” Johns said. “I’d heard he was 7-under. I was not going to do anything but try and birdie. I’m not going to bank on him bogeying. And I’m fairly aggressive.”
    Johns took a mighty blow and hooked his shot into the right fescue, a swing so hard his hat blew off.
    His next tee ball found the middle of the fairway. An approach got him to wedge range, and he took dead aim.
    “It must have come pretty close,” Johns said of the shot that finished about four feet behind the cup.
    He made that, knowing it was for bogey. Hopfinger, watching with his family, also knew.
    “My little brother was scouting for me,” he said of Mitch. “I knew that four-footer was for a 6. But I didn’t want to celebrate until it was official.”
    It will soon be back to the Latinoamerica Tour for Hopfinger, where a good finish will get him exempted to the second stage of Q school and a potential shot at the web.com Tour in 2015.
    “There are lots of scenarios,” Hopfinger said.
    Most all of them good. Hopfinger, who captured the Illinois Amateur in 2011, is the seventh player to win both state titles. The others: Roy Biancalana, Gary Hallberg, Mark Hensby, Bill Hoffer, David Ogrin and Gary Pinns.
    Michael Davan had the best round of the day, a 2-under-par 70 highlighted by an eagle 2 on the par-4 15th, which was drivable thanks to the use of a forward tee. That vaulted Davan into third place at 4-under 212. Kyle English, at 2-under 214, was the only other player to finish under par.
    The low amateurs were Brian Payne of Flossmoor and Daniel Stringfellow of Roselle, among those tying for fifth at even-par 216.
    With the wind, the field of 57 averaged 77.46, higher than the first two rounds, when the full field of 156 competed in relatively docile conditions. Among the 15 players shooting 80 or more: four-time champion Mike Small, whose 77-66-80 reading for 7-over 223 and a tie for 23rd was the most topsy-turvy of the championship.
    Defending champion Joe Kinney tied for 16th at 4-over 220.
    – Tim Cronin

Illinois Open: Bullington sees red ... numbers

    Writing from Glenview, Illinois
    Tuesday, July 22, 2014

    Brian Bullington came to The Glen Club this week with a plan.
    “Every day I’ve set a number for myself,” the Frankfort resident, a senior at Iowa in the fall, explained.
    For the first two days, he’s posted that number, and that’s good enough to hold the lead entering the final round of the 65th Illinois Open.
    Bullington’s 2-under-par 70 on Monday placed him four strokes behind leader Michael Davan. Now, after his 5-under 67 on Tuesday, Bullington’s aggregate of 7-under-par 137 earned him a one-stroke advantage on Oswego’s Travis Johns and two strokes on Bloomington’s Kyle English, Lake Forest’s Brad Hopfinger, and amateur Daniel Stringfellow of Roselle.
    Bullington didn’t have the look of a leader on his front nine. He was 1-over after eight holes, but birdied the 10th and 11th – the latter from 35 feet.
    “That kind of lit things up,” Bullington said.
    Three more birdies followed mid-round, and he finished things off with an 8-foot downhill slider for a bird at the par-5 18th to score 6-under 30 on the back nine. And never mind that it got windier with each completed hole. Bullington rode it like a Hawkeye.
    “It was a favoring wind,” Bullington decided. “For the tough holes coming in, they’re not really birdie holes.”
    Bullington’s had success elsewhere, but he’s been in the middle of the pack for his first two Illinois Open appearances. This third entry may turn out to be much more successful, and in a year when a fellow Hawkeye has also made noise.
    “Ray (Kroll) qualified for the John Deere Classic and won the state amateur,” Bullington said, hoping to write his own headlines.
    Kroll, from Naperville, is among those lurking. He’s in an elite group at 1-under 143, six back of his teammate, through 36 holes.
    But Bullington will have more likely challenges from Johns, who closed with an eagle for 6-under 66 by dropping a downhill 20-footer at the last, and English, the head pro at his parents’ course, Crestwicke Country Club, whose crafty 4-under 68 included a 35-foot eagle putt on the par-5 14th.
    “Right at the end I holed a bunch of putts,” said Johns, who teaches at Medinah. “Right before, I’d missed several 6-footers for birdies. But I believe it all evens out in the wash.”
    English was happy to be the first leader to finish, given how the wind was freshening at the time. It laid down a bit later, but English forged on through the breeze.
    “It didn’t change my game plan,” English said. “I was lucky to play this morning.”
    His location in Bloomington makes him one of the more distant competitors, but he’s not a stranger to his fellow competitors.
    “It’s a bit of a haul every time, but I play in every (Monday) stroke play,” English said.
    Three of the four knotted with Knoll in ninth place are former Illinois Open winners: four-time champion Mike Small, Eric Meierdierks and defender Joe Kinney. Small made the big move of the day with his 6-under 66, climbing from a tie for 88th into the deadlock for 10th. (Johns, in moving into second, only jumped 20 places.)
    To catch Bullington, Small still has to pass Libertyville’s Michael Schachner (4-under 140), and a duo at 2-under 142: 2012 champion Max Scodro of Chicago, and Hoopeston’s Michael Davan. The overnight leader skidded to a 76 on Tuesday.
    Proof that golf’s a family affair was reinforced with the performance of the Bauman clan. Daddy Doug, the 57-year-old pro at Biltmore, scored 2-under 70 to total 2-over 146, while sons Riley and Greg carded 73 for 147 and 76 for 148, respectively, all three making the cut to the low 50 players and ties.
    The cut fell at 5-over 149 and includes 57 players, with five former winners among the top 14 and ties. Twenty-five of those 57, beginning with Bullington, are amateurs.
    – Tim Cronin

Davan's 66: Route to redemption?

    Writing from Glenview, Illinois
    Monday, July 21, 2014

    A year ago, Michael Davan left The Glen Club with his head spinning.
    A double-bogey on the final hole, when all he needed was a par-5, cost him the Illinois Open title. He didn’t even make the three-way playoff, which was captured by Joe Kinney.
    Monday, he left the course with his head held high. Scoring 6-under-par 66, Davan holds the lead entering the second round of the 65th Illinois Open.
    “This tournament’s been on my calendar the whole year,” said the 25-year-old Davan, who lives in Hoopeston. “It affected me more afterwards than I thought it would. It’s been fuel for me.”
    Davan ignited with a 5-under 31 on the back nine, his first nine holes, and added a 1-over 35 on his inward nine.
    That earned him a one-stroke lead over Bloomington amateur Alex Burge, a senior at Illinois who described his 67 as “as boring as I would like. It’s what Coach (Mike Small) says. One shot at a time. You want to make it boring.”
    A casual observer would have thought otherwise. Burge rolled in a 30-footer for birdie on the par-5 first, a 20-footer for a birdie on the par-4 third, a 10-footer for a deuce on the par-3 fourth, and two-putted for birdie on the fifth after reaching the par-5 in two.
    Ho hum.
    “It was solid,” Burge said. “I managed my game well, dropped a couple of putts.”
    Birdies on the 14th and 15th rounded out his round. Meanwhile, Davan was exorcising the demon of last year. He started to do so on Sunday, when, during a practice round, he dropped a ball on the same spot on the 18th and again took dead aim with the 3-wood that cost him so dearly a year ago.
    “Smoked it on the green,” Davan said. “It was good to hit that shot.”
    And better to finish his first nine with a birdie on the hole in the first round.
    “I have a better game plan going into this year,” Davan added.
    It paid off in January with a win in a one-round mini-tour tournament in Sarasota, Fla., but the Illinois Open was always in the back of his mind. Monday, he hit 14 greens and played the par-5s in 3-under.
    Scott Baines of Chicago, an assistant at Bryn Mawr Country Club, had a roller-coaster round en route to his 4-under 68 and a tie with Dustin Korte, Brad Hopfinger and Michael Schachner.
    Baines opened with two birdies, added two bogeys, then scored a couple more birdies to finish his front nine, then a was sideswiped by double-bogey on the par-3 11th. Finally, he collected four birdies in the last six holes, including a chip-in bird on the 13th.
    “It was a very interesting round of golf today,” said Baines, the anti-Burge.
    It comes after a sub-par performance, and not in a scoreboard way, at the PGA’s national club pro soiree. Baines missed the cut, and that’s put a burr in his saddle.
    “I feel I had to redeem myself a little bit,” Baines said.   
    Pro Bryce Emory (Aurora) and amateurs Thomas O’Bryan (Aurora) and Michael Abrahamson (Chicago) are locked at 3-under 69, while seniors Billy Rosinia and Jim Sobb, along with amateur Brian Bullington (Frankfort) are among a large group at 2-under 70.
    Defending champion Joe Kinney is among those at 1-under 71.
    “I wasn’t hitting the ball as solid as I liked but kept it in play and didn’t have any penalties,” Kinney said. “Finishing 1-under-par, I’m still in position.”
    There are 21 players under par and another 11 at even par 72. The cut, which fell at 3-over 147 last year, is to the low 50 and ties. That means four-time winner Mike Small, tied for 88th after an opening 77, will have to step on it.
    Country Club of Decatur head pro Steve Orrick had the shot of the day, an ace on the 191-yard 17th hole. He wielded a 7-iron, collecting the fourth hole-in-one of his career.
    While Hans Larson of Mount Prospect withdrew after four holes and amateur Trevor Jay of Westmont was disqualified for an incomplete scorecard – he was 18-over through 16 holes, as well – the oddest occurrence of the day was Tim “Tee-K” Kelly’s withdrawal due to a medical emergency. He’s fine now, doctors having diagnosed him with severe dehydration. Kelly believes it’s because of what he ate and drank on Sunday. He returned to the course at about 7:30 p.m., after an emergency trip to Glenbrook Hospital, having withdrawn after nine holes.
    Kelly said he began feeling heart palpitations in the morning, but decided to play and became more agitated as his front nine went on in the early afternoon. He fanned on a shot at one point, and asked for paramedics to be called on the 18th hole, his ninth. (The winner of last year’s Illinois Amateur, had uncharacteristically been 8-over through seven holes.)
    Kelly, a sophomore at Ohio State, finished the hole with a marvelous chip to inches from the hole, then walked to an ambulance. Three hours later, he was back at the course, feeling and looking much better.
    – Tim Cronin

Illinois Open: Kinney aims to repeat

    Writing from Glenview, Illinois
    Sunday, July 20, 2014

    The business axiom that failing to move forward guarantees a step backward also applies to sport, which, beyond the competition itself, has a business supporting it.
    This is as true in golf as any other athletic endeavor. As even the casual golf fan knows, aside from the ever-growing purses on the professional tours, the business behind the game has been foundering in recent years.
    Even the Illinois PGA notices this. Entries for the Illinois Open – for which the 65th edition commences a three-day run at The Glen Club at 7:30 a.m. on Monday – are down this year.
    Why? Take your pick, and the reason will likely be true. Pros needing to stay in their shop and cater to their members is one reason. Amateurs unable to get away from their work for three days is another (though 81 amateurs, believed to be a record, are in the field).
    A decrease in entries means a lower purse, for much of the prize fund comes from the tournament entry fees. Wilson, the River Grove-based sporting good firm celebrating its 100th anniversary, is putting up a chunk of it, along with Athletico and KemperSports, but a good bit of the lucre on offer comes from the players who tried to qualify or were exempt and filed entries.
    Last year, playoff winner Joe Kinney collected $17,500, which, while not a record, was a goodly sum. This year’s champion is expected to deposit less in his account. (The precise number will be known Wednesday, when the oversize check is filled out.)
    To that end, the Illinois PGA, which has run the tournament since 1975 – the CDGA supervised it before then – wants to supersize the Illinois Open. The idea, executive director Michael Miller said last week, is to use two courses for the first 36 holes, which would allow up to double the size of the current 156-player field.
    The cut would still come after 36 holes and encompass the low 50 or so, but a bigger field would mean, he thinks, more entries into qualifying, because more players would qualify for the big show proper.
    “This could possibly be as soon as next year,” Miller said.
     Rare are the tournaments that need two courses – the U.S. Amateur, for stroke-play qualifying, immediately comes to mind. Next year, for instance, both courses at Olympia Fields Country Club will be used for qualifying when the U.S. Amateur decamps there, with all the match play on the stout North Course.
    So the IPGA would have to find a facility with 36 holes available or two courses in close proximity to each other willing to be taken over by a tournament. The latter task would be nearly impossible, the former merely difficult.
    But there is a solution. Since 2002, the Illinois Open has been played at courses operated by KemperSports. The Glen Club hosted from 2002 through 2007, and again beginning in 2012. The middle four years, Hawthorn Woods Country Club had the honor.
    Kemper just happens to have a 36-hole facility within the city limits. Harborside International, planted on landfill in what was a much larger Lake Calumet, is a Kemper-run operation. It also hasn’t been in the limelight since the 2002 SBC Senior Open, where Bob Gilder beat Hale Irwin in a playoff.
    What’s more, the Illinois Open’s new designated charity, the First Tee of Greater Chicago, is hoping to move its offices from the basement of The Glen Club to Harborside, where it can take advantage of a learning center that would be perfect for its youth improvement-through-golf curriculum.
    Connect dot A (two courses needed) to dot B (Kemper-controlled) to dot C (the First Tee) and you get an arrow pointing to Harborside’s driveway at 111th and Doty. Short of Frank Jemsek calling Miller and offering Dubsdread and Cog Hill No. 2 for three days next July, there’s no other logical alternative.
    It would be the perfect thing to announce after the winner collects his trophy and boodle late on Wednesday afternoon.
    Kinney would like to be that person again.
    Since last year’s success, Kinney has tried and come up short in getting his PGA Tour card, and more recently has been trying to cash in on the Adams Tour, among the leading independent circuits. So towns in Kansas, Oklahoma, Texas and other picture postcard locales have been his address of late.
    Kinney was so buoyed by last year’s triumph, he did what those stuck in offices say couldn’t happen to them. He played too much golf.
    “I’ve learned to pace myself,” Kinney said last week. “After I won here, I wanted to play every week. I burned myself out. There’s a little tightrope you like to walk.”
    He fell off.
    “The ball was going sideways,” Kinney said of his post-triumph blues.
    Wiser 12 months later, he won’t have his ace caddie from last year by his side this week. Greg Kunkle, the caddie master at Sunset Ridge Country Club and a close friend of Kinney, is fighting cancer and not able to carrie Kinney’s bag. So Kinney will have him along in spirit.
    Entries might be down, but the top of the field is stout. Kinney will have to fend off a gaggle of contenders, including four-time winner Mike Small – whose Illinois PGA Championship victory last year was the 15th Illinois major for the Hall of Famer – and eight other former champions, including amateur Joe Emerich, who won in 2008 to snap Small’s string of three straight titles. Max Scodro, the winner in 2012, is also back, along with Eric Meierdierks (2010) and four champs of less recent vintage, including Chicago State men’s coach Marty Schiene, who won thrice in the 1990s.
    – Tim Cronin

Remembering a legend: Errie Ball

    Writing from Chicago
    Wednesday, July 2, 2014

    Errie Ball grew up watching Harry Vardon play golf.
    The native of Wales teed it up in the same British Open as Bobby Jones.
    He soon worked at Jones’ club, East Lake, in Atlanta, lured across the pond by Jones’ prodding.
    He played in the first tournament hosted by Jones’ new club, Augusta National.
    He played in tournaments with Jones and Walter Hagen, Sam Snead and Ben Hogan. He was often paired with Byron Nelson.
    He was lockered next to Arnold Palmer at Cherry Hills in 1960 when Palmer stormed out of the locker room for the final round, drove the first green, and won the U.S. Open.
    He had long stints as the professional at Oak Park Country Club and Butler National Golf Club.
    He was a fine golfer. He won the Illinois PGA Championship three times, the Illinois Open once, and the Illinois PGA Match Play once. He qualified 20 times for the U.S. Open and 18 times for the PGA Championship. A fine showing in one of those appearances brought him back to Augusta National, where he set the record for years between playings of the Masters Tournament.
    But that just scratches the surface of the most gentle man in golf, who died this morning at a Martin Hospital South in Stuart, Fla. Samuel Henry Ball was 103 years old.
    Errie – the nickname comes from the Welsh version of Harry – was the last living member of the first Masters field, the oldest member of the PGA of America, and the last man you would think would ever die. He recovered completely from a bad fall several years ago, and was still driving himself to Willoughby Golf Club, where he was the pro emeritus, until recently.
    “The PGA of America is saddened by the passing of Errie Ball, a professional in all aspects of life,” PGA of America president Ted Bishop said in news release. “Errie's amazing career spans the legends of the game -- from Harry Vardon through Tiger Woods. His longevity, according to those who knew him best, was founded upon a love of people. Each day, like each step he took on the course, was spent with purpose. We will miss him dearly, but his legacy continues to shine through the many PGA Professionals he inspired to grow our game.”
    Until Saturday, when he entered the hospital complaining of breathing problems, Ball had  been active – slowed in recent years, to be sure, but still humming along thanks to a pacemaker and, he said, a glass or two of Dewar’s.
    He gave lessons until a few years ago. He remembered people, places and events from decades past. He was thrilled to learn that a tree that impeded approach shots on the eighth hole at Oak Park – including one of his in an Illinois Open – had been taken out.
    And he had a sidekick. Meeting Maxine “Maxie” Wright changed his, and her, life. He explained how in a 2011 interview.
    “Maxie had just graduated from Harry Baldwin in Virginia, and her parents gave her a graduation present of a trip around Europe,” Errie said. “I had finished playing in the British and had seen my family. We were sitting together, and became very friendly, and we ran all the events aboard ship. It took a long time to cross, some eight days, and Maxie and I ran shuffleboard and all that stuff and became very close.”
    So close, they made a big decision. They decided to get married. To do that, they also had to break off engagements to others.
    Two months later, 77 years ago, they were married. You never saw two people more in love.
    Ball’s playing ability was phenomenal, and lasting. In his 80s, he was still hitting drives over 250 yards, and invariably in the fairway. No less than Sam Snead said, and Gary Player agreed, that Ball had the best swing he’d ever seen.
    When the original graphite shafts appeared in the 1970s, many found the ball went anywhere but straight. Ball took a swipe and realized the new graphite shaft needed the old whipped swing used with hickory shafts, which he went back to in an instant. Nobody else could have done that.
    He was great friends with North Shore Country Club head pro Bill Ogden, and once upon a time, won an Illinois PGA title there. Steve Dunning, Oak Park’s pro emeritus, recalled what happened next.
    “It gave Errie tremendous pleasure to win it on Bill’s home course,” Dunning said. “So much so, he ended up sleeping on a couch in the clubhouse! He got home at 10 the next morning, holding a bouquet of flowers for Maxie. She said, ‘I will not be married to a damn drunk!’ ”
    In recent years, Ball’s national fame was renewed thanks to his longevity and his appearance in the first Masters, then called the Augusta National Invitation Tournament.
    “I’m the last man standing,” he quipped in 2011.
    “I didn’t know it was going to get this big,” Ball said. “The first Masters was more like an invitational tournament. There were 70 of us invited to play. Charlie Yates and myself got an invitation. When we got the invitation, we were thrilled to death, because we knew anything Bob Jones went into was going to be good.
    “You see how it’s turned out.”
    Ball tied for 38th back in 1934, the inaugural tournament won by Horton Smith, then the pro at Oak Park, where Ball would arrive after World War II.
    Ball wintered for decades at Tucson Country Club, where many a notable came through the shop. Once day, the Duke of Windsor walked in, needing a lesson.
    “I was much bigger than he was, and I’m small,” Errie quipped. “He had too much going on to be a good player. He had to give it the time.”
    Maxie, herself 100, survives Errie, as does daughter, Leslie, of Miami; brothers Tom, of South Africa, and John, of England; two granddaughters and a great-grandson. Services are yet to be determined.
    – Tim Cronin